10 Steps to Improving Your English Language and Pronunciation Skills | Part 2

This post is the second in a series on How to Improve Your English Language and Pronunciation Skills.

1. Part 1: Lessons. How to Improve Your American English Pronunciation | Lessons & Audio
2. Part 2: Practice. Tips on How to Improve Your English Pronunciation and Speaking

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My students come from all around the world, and they all ask me the same question: “How can I improve my pronunciation?”

Here is a list of practical tips I’ve come up with for my students to improve their pronunciation. But many of these tips apply to improving your English language skills, so you can apply them to improving your grammar and vocabulary, too.

Remember, your improvement will come from addressing your linguistic issues outside of class.

Re-training your muscles and mind takes awareness, practice and perseverance. If you put in the hours and the work, you will see positive results!

10 Steps to Improving Your English Pronunciation and Language Skills

1. Learn and become aware.

After learning the various rules of English, you must become aware of the errors that you make in your speech.

Keep an organized list of your corrections that have come from being monitored by other speakers, preferably native English speakers. If you don’t have a native English speaker to monitor you, simple listen and repeat with the Elemental English pronunciation and speaking lessons, and take note of how your pronunciation differs from mine.

For example, does my [θ] as in “think” [θInk] sound like [t] or [s], as in “tink” or “sink”, when you say it? 

Once you become aware of the errors you make, you are then ready to correct them. Obviously, if you are oblivious to your errors, you can’t fix them!

2. Monitoring. 

Any time you are corrected, write down the correction that you were given on a special “monitoring” list.

Constantly update this list, and keep it organized. This is extremely useful, because the errors that you produce are usually not random mistakes that come from “a slip of the tongue”. Most errors are part of a pattern of mistakes that you repeat again and again.

Download the free Pronunciation and Language Skills Monitoring List (PDF)!

3. Repetitive Review.

4. Repetitive Practice. 

5. Self-Correction. 

6. Write down your questions. 

7. Keep a running vocabulary list. 

8. Think in English.

9. Talk to yourself out loud at home.

10. Train your Ears. 

If this lesson was helpful to you, feel free to share it with other English language learners on Facebook and Twitter. 

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